building police-community relationships

Building Police-Community Relationships

The relationship of
the police to the community should be harmonious. The community
relies upon the police department to “protect and serve” and the
police, in return, rely upon community support and cooperation in
order to be effective. When communication and trust deteriorate,
tensions build between the community and police and undermine their
shared goal of safer communities.

Poor communication
between the police and communities served was the problem listed most
frequently, in a variety of ways, by police and community members
surveyed. When asked what the main problems are when it comes to
police-community relations, police leaders listed “language
barriers,” “connecting with the community,” and “lack of
meaningful communication on both sides and lack of understanding of
police practices” as obstacles to better relations. This list is
similar to the one provided by community members, who listed “lack
of communication,” “language barriers,” and “lack of
relationships” as barriers to getting along with the police.

Communication is an
active, not passive, process. It is not merely the provision of
information or demands to another, rather it is a process of
engagement, of listening, of seeking out and understanding what the
other is trying to express. Where communities and police departments
are communicating successfully with each other, how are they doing
it? What are specific cities doing, either successfully or not so
successfully? Are formal communications plans (at least between
police leaders and the community) the way to go? What process should
be instituted that would allow one group to understand the other so
that trust might flourish?

In this section, we
will discuss strategies that police can use in reaching out to
communities. Such strategies include: incorporating accountability
and transparency; creating opportunities for educational exchanges
such as “citizens’ police academies;” establishing regular
neighborhood meetings and maintaining communication and follow-up
between these meetings; and organizing forums to discuss policies,
tactics, or technology of interest to community. We will also examine
the strategies used by the communities to reach out to and educate
the police about the community, such as maintaining communication and
follow up between neighborhood meetings, canvassing for volunteers
and establishing an active roster, and raising awareness of
neighborhood meetings.

What the Police Should
Do

It is necessary
to incorporate accountability and transparency

The police are
responsible for trying to make communities safe by working to prevent
criminal acts and enforcing the law. They are accountable to the
community and its assessment of police successes and failures in
preventing, fighting, and solving crimes. The police must also be
open and transparent when dealing with the community and describing
crime-fighting efforts.

This mantle of
responsibility for fighting crime carries with it the obligation for
the police to respect the rights of the community members, since the
police can only accomplish their task with the cooperation and
support of the community. When police fail to respect the rights of
residents and police and political leaders fail to hold those who
engage in misconduct accountable, the police-community relationship
is put in jeopardy.

In our interviews,
many members of the community noted the lack of trust in the police,
due in large part to a perceived, or real, lack of accountability and
transparency by the police. One area where there is a great deal of
concern about accountability is in the handling of misconduct
complaints. Police leaders must describe to the public how police are
held accountable for misconduct. In addition to describing the
investigative and disciplinary procedures, the police need to show
outcomes that assure the public that those who do not follow the
department’s rules, or the law, are disciplined appropriately.

In efforts to
educate the public about policing, accountability systems should be
described fully. Obvious questions from the public include:

How does the
internal investigation work?

What are
possible outcomes of an internal investigation?

Who decides
about any disciplinary action, if misconduct is found?

Are there
external oversight mechanisms? How do they work?

How long will
all of the investigations typically take?

What is
required of a complainant in this process?

What does the
FBI or District Attorney’s office do, in relation to misconduct
investigations or criminal prosecutors of law enforcement officials?

Community members
want to be heard when they voice concerns about police actions and
they want to understand what to expect. Residents also want police
leaders to be candid and forthcoming. By educating the community
about accountability systems and being as transparent as possible in
general, but especially when it comes to community concerns about
specific issues or incidents, police leaders will help lay the
foundation for building trust.

The community wants
more out of “community policing” than just to be an extra set of
eyes and ears for the police. The community wants to have input into
how the neighborhood is governed and policed. Although there is
evidence from our surveys that the police departments are actively
reaching out to the community the police are still hesitant to
include the community in decision making or sharing power. Both of
these elements are necessary if the community is to be a true partner
with the police in making neighborhoods safer. The community should
be allowed input into police officer evaluations and reviewing
complaints. The community should be allowed input into police officer
promotions and, as noted earlier, promotions should be based on the
officers’ community policing efforts and involvement with the
community (both on and off duty) as well as other merits.

In addition to
community meetings and forums another method of for the police to
discern concerns of the community is through surveys. A common method
of conducting surveys is through mailing them out but, as described
by Maya Harris West in her book, Community-centered Policing: A
Force for Change, the Lincoln Police Department (Nebraska) uses
police recruits to make random telephone calls throughout the year to
those members of the community based upon three difference
police-citizen contacts: drivers in accidents; victims of crime; and
those who received a ticket. The use of the police recruits allows
them first hand exposure to community concerns and input. For the
Lincoln Police Department, the surveys provide insight into the
perception of its police practices by the community. For example,
through the surveys, it was revealed that there was dissatisfaction
with the lack of police follow up on crimes reported by the victims.
Upon investigation, the department discovered that it was not a lack
of follow up but rather a lack of communicating to those victims that
there was no follow up possible/necessary in their particular case.
As a result, officers investigating these calls were instructed to
explain to the victim whether follow up was possible or not and why,
so the victim would know what to expect.1

Create
opportunities for educational exchanges between the police and the
community.

A common method of
educational exchange is for police departments to host a “citizens’
police academy” to offer members of the community a chance to
experience and better understand aspects of the police officer’s
job. citizens’ police academies, which utilize a one-way
educational process consisting of police instructing the community,
should be supplemented by departmental consultation with residents as
its policies and strategies are developed. (Community approaches to
educating the police are described in the “What the Community
Should Do” section below.)

Create “citizens’
police academies” to educate the community about policing.

Citizen academies
are becoming very common and are popular with the public because the
creation of citizens’ police academies by police departments allows
community members some insight into police policies, tactics and
training and is seen as a positive development by the community.2
In order to provide a better view of policing and the obstacles which
police officers face a police chief suggests the “use [of] citizen
police academies [and] scenarios for civilians to illustrate what
officers face on the job.”

The citizens’
police academy typically runs one night a week for approximately two
to three hours over a period of 9 to 16 weeks. Police personnel
typically teach the classes, with trainers with specific expertise
responsible for certain sessions. Topics covered include:

Crime-scene
investigation

Traffic
accident investigation

Drug
investigations

Criminal law

Patrol
procedures

Communications

Crime
prevention

Courtroom
procedures

The citizens’
academies also offer the opportunity for members of communities to
see “behind the scenes” work of the police departments, with
presentations on subjects including: anti-gang, SWAT, and bomb
squads; narcotics and vice investigations; and traffic radar
enforcement.

The training is not
all lectures -- citizens’ academies offer members of the community
opportunities for hands-on training on firearms, fingerprinting,
precision-course driving, defensive tactics, criminal investigations,
mock traffic stops, and crime scene processing. There may also be
field trips or tours to police-related facilities, including
detention centers, emergency communications center, crime labs,
special investigative units, and ride-alongs with officers during a
working shift.

Because of the
popularity of the academies, one police chief wants to expand the
citizen’s academy, as well as create a “mini-academy” which is
focused on more particular issues such as gangs or drugs (for
particular neighborhoods). Another police department, in addition to
a 13-week (one day a week) police academy program, has created a
“Senior Citizens Police Academy” which runs over the course of
one week, four hours a day, and a “Teen Police Academy” which is
scheduled during the summer for a week.

Establish regular
neighborhood meetings between the police and community members.

A regularly
scheduled weekly or monthly meeting with the community liaison
officer, as well as area patrol officers, allows the community time
to voice their concerns and get to know the officers (and the
officers to know the members of the community). The meetings are
important in that they help engage the community in a meaningful way,
identify and prioritize issues of concern, monitor changing community
needs, and help solve problems before they grow. The regular
meetings offer an opportunity to discover “what is going on in the
neighborhood and offer a great conduit for [communication] and there
is lots of input from various people” according to one chief of
police while another states that the meetings offer “open
communication, partnerships and collaboration.”

Maintain
communication and follow-up between meetings.

The neighborhood
meetings provide an opportunity for the police and the community to
interact. Beyond meetings, there need to be open lines of
communication so that community members feel comfortable approaching
the police with non-emergency concerns. This is especially important
in communities where some members may not feel at ease to raise
issues of concern publicly at regularly scheduled, formal meetings.

Other communication
methods include:

community
satisfaction surveys

videos,
information and training made freely available for loan

internet with
web casts, interactive websites, web conferencing

forums (large
and small), for both the community leaders as well as people on the
street and patrol officers

making sure
materials are available in the languages of the communities served

Organize forums
to discuss policies, tactics, or technology of interest to community.

Policies, tactics,
and technology used by police officers may be a mystery to most
members of the community. When concerns are raised about certain
policies, tactics, or technology – or when police leaders should
reasonably predict that concerns will be raised – community forums
should be organized to provide information to residents.

The forums should
also be used to provide the opportunity for community members to
convey related concerns.

For example, if a
police department is considering providing Tasers for use by its
officers, police leaders should consult with the community and
describe why they are considering using the technology. Police
leaders should get feedback from the community and respond to its
concerns. At the very least, if a department has decided to purchase
a new weapon and has failed to consult with the community, it should
organize a forum to demonstrate how and why the weapon is used, why
the department chose it, how the officers will be trained on it, and
so on. Apprehensions regarding certain policies, tactics, and
technology can be greatly reduced if police take the time to consult
with, and educate, the public about its decisions.

What the Community
Should Do

Maintain
communication and follow up with the police between neighborhood
meetings.

Police leaders are
not the only ones responsible for improving communication and follow
up. Community leaders should follow up with the police and should
make sure that information about police-community efforts is conveyed
to the community at large.

To follow up with
the police, community leaders should stay in touch by telephone or
email.

Several police
departments provide for means of maintaining communication and
follow-up between meetings through email and cellular telephone
contact numbers provided by the police department. However some
police officers, once they have gained a rapport with the community
leader(s), provide their personal cell phone number so that there is
immediate communication if needed. The most commonly used method of
follow up is the distribution of the meeting’s minutes which are
mailed or emailed out and/or reliance upon the community liaison
officer.

One of the big
difficulties facing community police relations is to maintain the
continuing interest and participation of members of the community in
neighborhood committees. The police department has continuity
because, as an agency, it will ensure that it will continuously have
an officer assigned to liaise with the neighborhood (a paid position)
as opposed to the community members are all volunteers who have to
commit their spare time and resources to the meetings. As one
community member notes “The economy is tough, people just don’t
have the time to put the effort in to attending regular meetings [so]
meetings are usually attended by older people.” Working one or more
jobs, family commitments and other pressures may present obstacles to
some for a long-term commitment. There are also other challenges in
canvassing for volunteers. In discussing the challenges encountered
in trying to recruit individuals from smaller minority groups, one
community member told us that members of the smaller groups “appear
more apathetic or hesitant to advocate, it is hard to identify the
leaders or even if there is one”.

Another issue is the
community’s antagonism toward the police in some neighborhoods,
especially in lower-income areas or in neighborhoods where residents
have endured what they consider racially-biased policing or
experienced “rougher” policing tactics in relation to problems
like drug dealing or gang violence.. That antagonism may also
manifest itself towards those individuals or groups who are seen to
“cooperate” with the police in such program as Block Watch or
neighborhood committees and hence make volunteers less willing to
come forward.

Raise awareness
of neighborhood meetings.

The time, location,
and date of police-community meetings need to be publicized on a
continuous and proactive basis. One community activist uses “radio,
events and festivals, word of mouth, ESL and literacy programs” to
recruit community members and raise awareness, while another states
that to reach out, he uses “mailings to those outside the network,
faith-based, business, minorities: for example for the Burmese
[community] a volunteer will translate [the material] and liaise with
[that] community”.

Identify and
utilize community assets.

For developing
resources and expertise a neighborhood can use “resource mapping”
or “asset mapping” which is a process of canvassing the community
of the resources which reside within it, financial, technical and
personal expertise, so as to use them in the most efficient manner.
This can be accomplished through door-to-door surveys or through
forums3.
Clearly one of the resources is the police officers in the
neighborhood, but there are also the social service agencies, the
local schools, local businesses and governmental agencies, all of
which may have programs available (or a desire to participate in
programs) to address community concerns if approached. While not an
end in itself, developing an inventory of community assets is also a
vehicle for bringing members of the community together, to meet, and
to learn from each other. Resource mapping will assist in
initializing dialogue with the police and the community about what
resources are available, what can be achieved and the commitment
needed.